And Now, The End Is Near

We've come to the end of our journey through the vast realm of Public Relations. But there is still a bit more to go. Before we leave, we have one last reading to get through.

This week's chapter focuses on asian public relations management.

Now, as we've seen in week 3's chapter on theoretical contexts, there are many theories, and they do not necessarily apply equally to all cultures. One theoretical model cannot cover all aspects of public relations in Asia. Different practices and management strategies need to be employed in different circumstances in different countries because cultural differences result in different responses from the public of that culture.

Culture is one variant that requires PR practitioners to come up with new strategies, but another barrier to overcome is language. The language barrier is most evident, as least to English-speaking MNCs, in countries where English is not a native language. Worse still, where English is not even a commonly spoken or encountered language, especially in rural places. It is in these situations and environments that developing relationships and framing issues become most important.

Public relations can play key roles not only in business organisations, but also in government bodies, where they support nation-building and issues management in those contexts.

Therefore, we can see that public relations can be involved in all manner of organisations, and can play many different important roles within them. Public relations is a vast, wide world, with many players and many avenues for play.

And we have only just begun.

Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Facebook's Blue

This week, it's all about New Media and its implications within the field of public relations.

Now, public relations concentrtes heavily on communication. With the advances of technology and the rise of new media, relationships can be built differently, and organisations can now communicate along more paths to their audiences and the public. For example, the internet allows PR practitioners to cast their net wider and faster. Many types of people use the internet, spanning the variants of age, race, countries, education, geographical location and socioeconomic factors.

But this rapid advancement of technology can hinder the progress of PR practitioners as well. For example, when using digital software or internet services, one must take into consideration the different systems, not all of which may be compatible. And with technology advancing so quickly, new technology often becomes old too soon, and PR practitioners have to keep up with this everchanging treadmill.

Another minefield that PR practitioners have to wade through is the legal and ethical arena. The new realm of new media comes fraught with areas for legal and ethical challenges. As such, PR practitioners should always disclose both their professional and personal interests.

Issues, Crises, and Reputation Management

What is the difference between an issue and a crisis?

No, it's not the letters 'u', 'e', 'c' and 'r'.

In short, an issue is something that arises when the company does something that doesn't match the public's expectations of the company. A crisis, on the other hand, is what happens when an issue (or multiple issues) are not adequately addressed and spiral out of control.

So, how does one deal with issues that crop up? One must first identify that the issue(s) or concern(s) are. This involves the company deciding if the issue in mention will hinder them in achiving their strategic goals. Next is issue scanning, which involves the monitoring or "scanning" of media for content. The advent of online media has both helped and obstructed this process. Issue monitoring follows, and is self-explanatory. It allows the organisation to monitor the issue as it progesses.

Heath (1997) states that an issue should be included in an organisation's issue management system only if:
- The journalists covering the issue believe it is legitimate and should be discussed in the public scope
- The issue threatens the organisation's reputation, operations, or provides the organisation advantages in the contested space.
- The issue is of concern to one or more key publics for the organisation and said key publics are able to motivate legislative agenda.

Issue analysis measures the impact of the issue on the organisation. Steps to take in issue analysis are:
- Describe the issue and come up with a definition.
- List all publics affected by the issue, and whether they have positive or negative responses to the issue.
- Decide on the possible timing and impact of the issue for the organisation.
- Provide the resources to undertake a thorough analysis of the situation.

So know that we know what an issue is and what to do when one occurs, what about crises?

What makes a crisis a crisis is that it must affect the organisation and prevent the organisation from functioning properly, and that it threatens the organisation's reputation and public's or audience's perceptions of the organisation.

There are many types of crises that run the gamut from technical or economic crises, to human or social crises, and they can be regular, relatively 'everyday' crises, or severe ones. Pauchant and Mitroff (1992) have a chart compiling and categorising the various types of crises.

Crises often follow a 'lifecycle', if you will.
Phase 1: Prodromal, signal detection, and detection stage.
Phase 2: Preparation, probing, and prevention stage.
Phase 3: Acute and containment stage.
Phase 4: Chronic, learning, and damage containment stage.
Phase 5: Resolution and recovery stage.

So, since a crisis has to be severe enough to impact an orgnisation's reputation, what is involved in managing said reputation?

Corporate reputation managemnt is multidiciplinary. There is no one way. Rather, it is based on the skill set of ethical corporate PR practitioners, but also involves the cooperative and coordination efforts throughout the entire organisation. This includes support and understanding from the organisation's CEO.

In focusing on the reputation of the organisation, as well as the relationships and communication involved in building it, a PR practitioner has to recognise that multiple aspects of what an organisation says and does contribute to reputation, and that organisations must have a clear vision of the reputation they want and the nature of the relationships they would like, and this vision must be clearly communicated wihin the organisation.

I Manage to Manage the Management

Drumroll, now. This week's reading is...on management~ To be precise, public relations management within organisations.

If you're going to work within an organisation, management is always going to be part of work, and your working relationship. Week 3's reading on theories comes back to haunt us again, because an integral part of understanding the role of public relations management in organisations is systems theory.

Oh come now, stop sighing. Systems theory is useful in providing a way to view organisations and the relationships they have with the environment. It explains the role public relations plays in helping to understand and manage the relationships between an organisation and its investors and public.

Now, in previous weeks we've seen the important roles that PR practitioners play within organisations. To help their clients achieve their goals, PR practitioners with the internal department must be aware of the relationships between their function and that of others within the corporate structure. One of the tasks that a PR practitioner must perform is that of building relationships between employees, to enhance the communication within the organisation and to maintain organisational culture.

Besides playing a key role in organisational relationships, a PR practitioner must also build and mantain relationships with the public, as they are the ones who have the power to affect the organisations, especially during time of upheaval.

As the public is so important to the future of an organisation, it is therefore imperative that the organisation change with the expectations of their audiences and the public.